He leaped for shots and rebounds and blocks, moving with an ease that was glaringly absent from other recent games since his return from a 2 1/2-month layoff because of a torn medial collateral ligament in his right knee.

Instead of spending his day in foul trouble, instead of playing a step behind the opposition, Bynum had a positive impact on the Lakers’ 89-70 victory over the Houston Rockets. He scored 14 points, grabbed six rebounds and blocked two shots.

Bynum matched his career highs for points in a playoff game and set one by making six shots on seven attempts. The 7-foot center also had only two fouls and one turnover in a little more than 22 minutes.

“Andrew played great,” teammate Pau Gasol said. “His production was very, very good. He was aggressive on the boards and he was a presence (in the paint). I was happy to see him contribute and play hard, with emotion. That was a plus.”

No question, the Lakers will need all that and more from Bynum when they face the Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference finals. In the Lakers’ first 11 playoff games, it was hard to know what they would get from him.

“You can tell a 3-year-old, `Stop,’ and they choose when to stop,” Lamar Odom said, drawing on his experience as a father of young children to explain how Bynum doesn’t always get the message from the Lakers’ coaching staff.

For a while, it seemed as if Bynum might spend the rest of the postseason on the Lakers’ bench. Odom replaced him in the starting lineup. They swapped places only after Odom suffered a bruised back in the Lakers’ loss to the Rockets in Game 4.

Jackson decided to exploit the Lakers’ height advantage over the Rockets, who did not start a player taller than the 6-foot-9 Luis Scola for Game 7. Bynum and Gasol were both told to be more aggressive Sunday.

“We had a lot of faith in that,” Jackson said.

First-quarter follies

The Lakers crossed up the Rockets with a different defensive scheme to start Game 7. The Rockets opened the game by missing their first 12 shots and 15 of their first 20 while falling behind 22-12 at the end of the first quarter.

“They were just zoning up and we didn’t react well,” Houston’s Aaron Brooks said. “We couldn’t make any shots and I think that was the problem. We did not make any shots in the first half. In games like this, it would be nice to have a low-post presence.”

Game 7 history

The Lakers improved to 3-1 in Game 7s in Jackson’s tenure as coach.

Their only loss was in the deciding game of their first-round series against Phoenix in 2006.

They defeated host Sacramento in overtime in the decisive game of the Western Conference finals in 2002. They also rallied from a 15-point deficit to beat Portland in the deciding game of the conference finals in 2000.

Elliott Teaford covers the Anaheim Ducks for the Orange County Register and the Southern California News Group. He covered the Ducks for 12 years, including the Stanley Cup season, for the Los Angeles Times and the Daily Breeze before returning to the beat in 2018 for SCNG. He also covered the Lakers for five seasons, including their back-to-back NBA championships in 2009 and '10. He once made a jump shot over future Utah Jazz center Mark Eaton during a pickup game in 1980 at Cypress College.